I post a weekly diary of historical notes, arts & science items, foreign news (often receiving little notice in the US) and whimsical pieces from the outside world that I often feature in "Cheers & Jeers".
OK, you've been warned - here is this week's tomfoolery material that I posted.
CHEERS to Bill and Michael in PWM, our Laramie, Wyoming-based friend Irish Patti and ...... well, each of you at Cheers and Jeers. Have a fabulous weekend .... and week ahead.
ART NOTES— an exhibition entitled Journey into Light: Travels with J.M.W. Turner— with watercolors of famous destinations (the Rialto Bridge in Venice, the Aysgarth Force waterfalls in England, Rosslyn Castle in Scotland) — is at the Newfields section of the Indianapolis Museum of Art, scheduled to October 4th.
QUITE OFTEN those in rural Kenya who move to the capital city of Nairobi tell those from their hometowns that the wages they now earn are not much better …. for fear that if they revealed they are often 4x higher (even after adjusting for higher rent) that they would be inundated by requests for help.
THURSDAY's CHILD is named Chloe the Cat— a Philadelphia kitteh who was seen from across the street by a 2-½ year-old girl named Leah each day …. and her mother put up a sign, asking for the cat’s name. A neighborly dialogue has sprung.
SIXTY YEARS AGO the film Jazz On a Summer’s Day— filmed at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival, starring Mahalia Jackson, Louis Armstrong, Anita O’Day, Dinah Washington and others — premiered on movie screens, and is considered one of the finest music documentaries ever made. It also featured the Jimmy Giuffre Trio — without a piano or drums — which John Mayall later said was the inspiration for his drumless Turning Point band, later that decade.
YOUR WEEKEND READ if you have not seen it yet — is Jane Mayer’s detailed account of the life-and-times of Moscow Mitch, with the money quote:
For months, I searched for the larger principles or sense of purpose that animates McConnell… finally, someone who knows him very well told me, “Give up. You can look and look for something more in him, but it isn’t there.”
FRIDAY's CHILD is named Hazel the Cat— an Australian kitteh who was blind and scrawny upon arrival at the SPCA yet has now blossomed in a forever home.
MUSIC NOTES— while much shorter (and not as ambitious) as his seventeen-minute song about the JFK assassination last month, Bob Dylan has just released another new tune entitled I Contain Multitudes— a line from a Walt Whitman poem — that also name-checks Frederic Chopin, Edgar Allan Poe, William Blake, the Rolling Stones and others.
WONDER of WONDERS— Digby notes that nearly alone in right-wing media (from the start; Tucker chimed-in later) in talking about Covid-19 in an informed way is Michael Savage— yes, him — as he has a Ph.D. and training in epidemiology. Stopped clock, and all-that.
BRAIN TEASER - try this Quiz of the Week's News from the BBC.
FIRST COUSINS?— French doctor Didier Raoult— the prime proponent of using the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine to treat coronavirus, a magic bullet in the eyes of the Trumpster — and Harold Bornstein, the Trumpster’s former personal physician who wrote equally specious claims (then canned for an honest lapse).
...... and finally, for songs of the week .......................… two mini-profiles of singers from the cabaret/jazz idiom with unusual feminine voices. One was a pianist whose voice was uncommonly girlish … the other, someone whose voice was often mistaken for that of a woman, yet who was not. Both enjoyed some early success, then a career lull, finally ending their careers with a much higher profile.
Margarethe Blossom Dearie (1924-2009) was born in an Irish-American enclave in the Catskill Mountains and worked with the small groups associated with Woody Herman and Alvino Rey. In 1952 she moved to Paris and led her own band playing standards with French lyrics. Producer Norman Granz heard her there and signed her to the Verve label, returning to New York in late 1956.
The next several years were her most productive, with several albums in the jazz charts (often re-worked Broadway show tunes) yet originals as well (Blossom’s Blues). Yet she truly found her niche in the supper club/cabaret circuit, appearing often with Dave Garroway on the Today Show, plus with Jack Paar on the Tonight Show as well as radio talk shows (even on a 1960’s Hires Root Beer commercial).
After the British Invasion she recorded little in the 1960’s in the USA, instead moving to London where she recorded several albums. She returned in the 1970’s, founding her own Daffodil Records (where she had complete artistic control and distribution). She often recorded for the Schoolhouse Rock! children’s series, even receiving a 1973 Grammy nomination for Multiplication Rock.
She continued to perform on the cabaret circuit until 2006, and she died in February, 2009 (seven weeks short of her eighty-fifth birthday). The pop star Kylie Minogue cited her as an influence and her playing/singing has been used frequently on TV/film (with The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel one recent example).
Her 1970 album That’s Just the Way I Want to Be was her final UK-recorded release, and featured songs she mostly co-wrote with others, including an ode to John Lennon. Here she sings a tribute to a different English singer ….. and you can hear the girlish voice, recorded when she was age forty-six.
Dusty Springfield, that's a pretty name It even sounds like a game In a green field Hobby horses play the dusty game when it's May Pink and paisley skies shining in green eyes A magic pinwheel, London flowers fare Blooming in her hair
Dusty Springfield, silver starshine over crystal waters Petals fall from her glance Flowers sparkle with a dew of morning Feathers float from her dance
Suddenly the song's the thing Fill your cup, come to the spring And you'll stand so still And you'll feel the thrill Dusty Springfield, that's a pretty name Pretty as a pearl What a pretty girl
Someone who had to overcome genetic limitations, family trauma and critical record company maneuvers was the singer Jimmy Scott— the only performer to perform at both the presidential inaugurations of Eisenhower (in 1953) and Bill Clinton (in 1993), each time singing Why Was I Born? For much of his career he was referred to as Little Jimmy Scott— as he suffered from the rare hereditary disease Kallman Syndrome, never reaching puberty, remaining less than five feet tall until his late 30’s and having a contralto voice. And so DJ’s could play his 45’s and quiz their listeners as to who it was … with many assuming it was a female.
Born to a family of ten children (1925-2014) in Cleveland, his mother was killed in a car accident when he was thirteen, then raised by foster parents. He first gained experience as a vocalist in Lionel Hampton’s band, where a 1950 release Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool reached the R&B Top Ten … but the label only said “Lionel Hampton and vocalists”. That was at least better than a posthumously-released Charlie Parker album, where Scott’s vocals on the George & Ira Gershwin classic “Embraceable You” were actually credited …. to Velma “Chubby” Newsom.
After a series of singles in the early 1950’s, he hit his commercial peak by being signed to Savoy Records, where a series of albums made him a star in the jazz world. He signed a lucrative contract with Ray Charles’ label Tangerine in 1962 and recording Falling in Love is Wonderful…. whose release had to be scrapped (when he was on his honeymoon) with Savoy claiming breach of contract (the album remained unreleased until forty years later). This and other issues (being misidentified as a woman, a drinking problem, accused of drug addiction and harassed about his sexual identity because of his voice) led Jimmy Scott to (largely) leave music for twenty years, working at a hotel in his native Cleveland.
He returned in the late 1980’s (nearing age sixty-five) helped by the songwriter Doc Pomus — and Jimmy Scott sang at Pomus’ funeral in 1991. Based upon this, he was offered a contract by Sire Records that reignited his career.
And over the next dozen years, he recorded several albums that were well-received: with 1992’s All the Way earning a Grammy nomination. He had a blend of classic big band ballads and more contemporary music interpretations, with Lou Reed writing the liner notes for one such album.
Jimmy Scott died in June 2014, one month shy of his eighty-ninth birthday (a remarkable longevity for someone born with his condition). He was the subject of a 2003 documentary (the same year that his biography was published), appeared on the final episode of Twin Peaks, sang on the soundtrack of the film Philadelphia, was named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts and a Living Jazz Legend by the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. After his death, part of East 101st Street in Cleveland was renamed Jimmy Scott Way.
He had a 1998 album that focused on songs from the pop/rock era, with songs by Elton John, Elvis Costello, John Lennon ….. and below, the title track: the breakthrough single by Mick Hucknall from Simply Red.